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In May 2013, the media released a profusion cases involving sexual assault against girls. Sun Xuemei, soon to be pregnant with a daughter, found her heart crushed in anguish, calling out to the victims in compassion. Her journalism instinct led to piles of research on the subject.
She found out that most sexual assault cases occurred in rural areas, mostly victimizing children left behind or children of migrant workers. Sun had grown up deep in the mountains of Guizhou, and she could remember the hardships that she had faced, too, as a child.
A few days later, Sun took on the initiative and began the Protecting Girls movement.
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Sun teaches primary school children in Yunnan. [Photo/bjby.bjwmb.gov.cn] |
China officially recognizes June 1 as Children's Day. By this date, Sun already had a circle of over a hundred female reporters rooting for her. It was also on this symbolic date when she put up her first Protecting Girls post on Weibo.
In under two months, Protecting Girls had grown to be listed under the Child Safety Fund, and supported by the Chinese Social Assistance Foundation. With a strong momentum under her belt, Sun began the first of her child sex abuse prevention plans, vividly introducing children to protection lessons. She designed the classes in such a way that children could master them in a relatively short amount of time.
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Only 140 students watched this presentation live, but it was televised to the entire school population of 1,700. [Photo/bjby.bjwmb.gov.cn] |
Sun's days were already taken up by her career as a reporter, and now, Girls Protection had swallowed up almost all of her free time.
But she had a core team of 20 other reporters; she had an extensive collection of anti-assault material for children both at home and abroad; she had lessons planned and expert advice. And after six months of strenuous work, and some 40 revisions, Sun also had a complete lesson plan fighting against child sex abuse, especially tailored for primary schools.
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Sun, despite being 7 months into her pregnancy, still insisted on continuing her work. [Photo/bjby.bjwmb.gov.cn] |
As of July 23 2014, Girls Protection had already commenced in 17 provinces in China. A total of 9103 children had received education on recognizing and protecting themselves from assault. Sun's handbook has been printed over 100,000 times.
The project team is now cooperating with local governments and training volunteers by the hundreds. "This gives hope," she says. "A sustainable, long-term hope."
Edited by Wang Zili
